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Hurom HZ Slow Juicer Review (2020)

Updated: January 8, 2020

By Nichlas Brandon

Quick Digest: Pros, Cons and Verdict

Here's What We Think

The Hurom HZ Slow Juicer manages to impress with a beautiful stainless steel design but falls short in justifying the price leap over Hurom's previous models. It's still a superb and versatile juicer for all your needs.

Pros

Very appealing stainless steel body construction with LED light indicators

Very versatile appliance for making juices, smoothies, sauces, nut milk and more

Compact vertical design makes it easy to fit in most kitchens

Self-cleaning system helps make up for non-dishwasher-safe parts

Cons

Is prone to jamming often if produce isn't cut small enough

Not powerful enough to crush hard produce like carrots consistently without jamming

Self-cleaning system is very convenient when you’re making different recipes in succession

10-year warranty on motor, 2 years on parts

Build Quality and Design

As mentioned, the Hurom HZ Slow juicer is their only model to feature a stainless steel body construction.

Other material used includes ABS, tritan and ultra strong GE Ultem plastics.

The fine and coarse strainers are built with stainless and Ultem, while the ice cream strainer is built from BISEN plastic.

All plastic components coming in contact with food are BPA-free.

As with all Hurom juicers, it’s compact and you shouldn’t have much trouble making space for it, clocking in at:

8.1 inches wide (20.6 cm)

16 inches tall (40.6 cm)

9.3 inches deep (23.6 cm)

11.9 pounds (5.4 kilograms)

A unique feature of this model is the LED status indicators located on the side, which shows you if the juicer is in extract or reverse mode.

The crescent-shaped feed chute opening measures 2 x 1.5 inches, which means you’ll need to spend some time pre-cutting your produce, but this is typical with masticating juicers.

With the juicer, you get 3 different strainers each of which you’ll choose depending on what you want to make:

Fine strainer (for making smooth juices and milk)

Coarse strainer (for creating thicker textures)

Ice cream strainer (freakin’ awesome!)

To achieve the least amount of pulp and fiber content for a smooth juice, you’ll use the fine strainer along with setting the Pulp Control Lever to open.

If you want to achieve thicker or pulpy textures, you’ll need to use the coarse strainer and set the Pulp Control Lever to closed. This is ideal for making smoothies, purées, sauces, baby food, etc.

When juicing, the juice ejection port has a useful closing cap attached, which serves the purpose of:

preventing juice dripping when removing the juice container

holds the content inside the juice drum until it has been processed to your desired texture and consistency

The juice drum holds 16.9 fl. oz. before you’ll need to open the ejection port.

You also get a 35 fl. oz. juice container and a 50 oz. pulp collector. These capacities should be enough to let juice for 2 people without interrupting your juicing to empty the containers.

All Hurom juicers come with a lengthy 10-year warranty on the motor, but a much shorter 2-year warranty on parts. As I said in our Hurom H-AA Alpha Slow Juicer review, I’d much prefer a longer warranty on the parts because they break more often than motors.

Juice Quality and Yield

Most reviews and feedback I’ve come across confirm that the Hurom HZ, like Hurom’s other models, is very efficient at extracting juice from produce, leaving a very dry pulp.

The Hurom HZ’s yields are about the same as the HH Elite model, so the result you see in the following video will apply here:

The difference in extraction is usually quite noticeable when switching over from a centrifugal juicer; you simply get more for less and more bang for your buck.

With a few exceptions, the Hurom HZ performs really well with both hard and soft produce as well as leafy greens, citrus fruits, wheatgrass, and nuts.

As the auger rotates and effectively processes produce at a slow speed of 43 RPM, this ensures your juice is spared from frictional heat and high oxidation and results in a longer lasting juice you can store up to 72 hours.

As implied earlier, you can take advantage of the Pulp Control Lever and strainers to control the texture and how much pulp and fiber you want in your juice.

Vertical masticating juicers do require a slight bit of trial and error before you get consistently good results. So here are some tips you can apply:

Close the juice spout’s cap, allow the drum to fill up, then release the juice into the juice container

Cut your produce into small chunks and slowly drop in one or two pieces at a time

If you’re making a juice with multiple ingredients, you can help the juicer by alternating between the different ingredients (i.e. put in a little carrot, then some spinach, cucumber, apple, and repeat.)

Give the juicer time to process things before you add more

Before wrapping up, finish with hard produce to clear leftovers from soft produce and leafy greens

Also, while reviewing Hurom’s H-AA Alpha and HH Elite models, I came across reports from users having difficulties with juicing certain produce like carrots.

Basically, the juicers struggle to crush certain hard produce if the pieces are too big, as they’re not powerful enough. This ends up causing jams and blockages where you’ll need to use the reverse function.

With this model, some have also had issues with celery tending to clog the pulp ejection port. So cut these into as small pieces as possible and see how things go.

In light of the above, I’ll also have to say if you’re looking to juice a lot of carrot and celery, Hurom’s line of juicers may not be an ideal option for you.

Performance and Noise

One particular characteristic to appreciate about Hurom’s juicers is their super quiet motors.

You can pretty much run this machine and juice whenever you want without disturbing neighbors or anyone sleeping.

Remember also that the Hurom HZ is a slow juicer, and while their slow rotations give you more yield and longer lasting juice, you must have some patience for pre-cutting your produce and slowly running it all through the juicer one piece at a time.

If you’re upgrading from a centrifugal juicer, the extra time it takes to juice will take some getting used to.

Is It Easy to Use?

Mastering masticating juicers can take a slight but worthwhile learning curve to get consistently good results and avoid causing frequent jams, especially with vertically designed models.

With that said, I’ve generally found Hurom’s juicers to be intuitive and user-friendly, and this unit is no exception, so if you follow the tips mentioned earlier, you’ll have a good experience.

Piecing the parts together or taking the juicer apart, can seem tricky the first one or two times you do it. After this, it’s very easy and should take no longer than 30 seconds.

Is It Easy to Clean?

The Hurom HZ features a convenient self-cleaning system which comes in handy when making multiple recipes one after the next.

You simply:

close the juice port’s cap

turn on the juicer

pour 2 cups of water through the hopper’s feed opening

This will quickly rinse the machine internally after which you can open the juice port and let the water out, saving you from disassembling all the parts between recipes.

The only dishwasher safe part of all Hurom’s juicers is the auger screw.

So I recommend giving the stainless steel body a wipe down with a wet cloth and washing all detachable parts by hand using warm water and soap.

As clean-up is practically the same between the Hurom HZ and H-AA Alpha models, here’s a video on how to clean the H-AA Alpha:

Should I Buy the Hurom HZ Slow Juicer?

Having highlighted the most important things to consider, your final question is likely going to be about the price.

If you say this is a pricey kitchen appliance, I’ll absolutely agree with you, especially if this is your first juicer and you’re completely new to juicing.

Because of the price, I’ll say this one isn’t for beginners.

Let’s put it this way: you can buy a $10,000 car or a $100,000 car.

Ultimately, both will get you from point A to B and will do a pretty good job at it. The $100,000 car just looks a lot nicer, probably features a fancy brand name, and has a real premium feel to it. You would probably want to show it off, too.

The Hurom HZ is the $100,000 car. It’s beautiful, features a premium stainless steel construction, and delivers good quality juice yields. But some of Hurom’s cheaper models will offer the same level of performance and efficiency.

So if what you’re after is a premium piece of eye-candy for your kitchen countertop, look no further than the Hurom HZ Slow Juicer.

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